A very important point Hiko. It certainly makes a big difference. They roll much easier with a side load.
Just use the end of your callipers to measure through the bearings and up against a flat surface.
Subtract the width of the two bearings and this gives you a starting point.
A bit of final tweaking/shortening, is sometimes needed to get them to spin with very little friction. I use a rear LLM axle in the vice and a standard 20mm nut to set them up.
I can be time consuming on some wheels to get them to not have any side load on the bearings. Each wheel is a bit different.
I use stainless steel curtain rod/hand rail which is the old 1"OD and 1/16" wall for mine, as that's what I could find laying around.
A few more questions arise.The hub as shown has a recess for the bearing 15mm deep.The bearing sitting in the sleeve protrudes about 1mm above the lip and the sleeve itself is about 16 mm across so the bearing will be protruding 2mm from the face of the hub.Is that am issue?
I bought 2"bearings R16-2RS from Ebay for AUD$60 (for 8- it was cheaper that way). A little bit of light oil and a block of wood and they tapped straight into the Fallshaw rim. I also bought some reducing bushes 1"to 20 mm from my local Fallshaw supplier - job done.
I still need to make the spacer to go between the bearings. I have some 1"aluminium tubing that will do the trick.
But your bearings are only 1/2" wide and the recess in the fallshaw is about 5/8" deep, won't you need a spacer for them to seat them correctly?
Just a thought Whippet.
Hey Chook. You sure know your bearings. Yes, they are only 1/2"wide.
However, my recesses appear to be only 1/2"deep (13 mm). I note from an earlier post from Tryhard that he measured 15 mm. I can't explain the difference.
The bearings are seated squarely on the inside lip and are flush on the outside.